Back in the 1980s there were some who argued for libertarian socialists to get involved in DSA. The Workers Solidarity Alliance magazine ideas and action ran in issue #3 — Spring 1983 a "Debate: DSA & Libertarian Socialism" [ http://ideasandaction.info/about/magazine/ ] This is not on-line

1983 Debate from the Workers Solidarity Alliance magazine "ideas & action" on whether or not anarcho-syndicalists and libertarian socialists should participate in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)

I'm sympathetic to this argument just given how weak as fuck the Left is right now. Those on the libertarian left can just not participate in the election bullshit while working together in other areas.

I'm sympathetic to this argument just given how weak as fuck the Left is right now. Those on the libertarian left can just not participate in the election bullshit while working together in other areas.

Who We Are: The Libertarian Socialist Caucus is an organization made up of Libertarian Marxists and Anarchist members of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Purpose: to encourage the DSA to promote a revolutionary mass movement to construct socialism in the United States and to give an ideological base for our vision of the future.

Our Ideology: Libertarian Marxism & Anarchism.
Marxism as the theoretical and analytic basis to:
Understand the relationship between economic base and ideological superstructure.
Establish Workplace Democracy to economically organize local communities.
Interpret history and events through a dialectical lens.
Develop revolutionary strategy for social transformation.
Provide an economic critique of capitalism.

Anarchism as a philosophical and ethical means to:
politically organize local communities via Libertarian Municipalism.
Link communities together via Confederalism.
Critique hierarchy and social relations.
Organize local communities.
Develop and spread a social ecology.

Our Vision: Liberatory-Revolutionary-Democratic-Socialism, in which:
The levers of power are democratically owned and managed by the people.
Workplace Democracy gives power to workers.
Councils give power to local communities.
Delegates are always subject to recall.
Capitalist state organs of oppression, i.e. the police, are dismantled.
The crowning heights of the economy are socially owned and managed.
The role of the state is to provide public infrastructure and wields little or no political power.
The Three Pillars of Liberty, Unity, and Democracy are foundational principles of society:
Liberty refers to personal and individual freedoms, rights, and privileges.
Unity refers to social solidarity and communal cooperation.
Democracy refers to people power. Social, economic, and political power must be open and democratic.

From what I can gather by looking through their official website, as well as their social media accounts, the Libertarian Socialist Caucus is basically a big tent within an already big tent socialist political organisation. They don't really have a consensus on tactics, strategy or even vision of a post capitalist society. The only items on their websites that are meant to collectively represent the caucus are the endorsements and statements regarding various things in the 'News' section, as well the Founding document explaining 'Who We Are'. While I don't agree with the content of the latter document, it is at least a lot more coherent than the draft statement posted above by Anticapital108.

The two most represented tendencies within this caucus appear to be mutualism and radical municipalism. The former is expressed in support of the development of the co-operative sector and credit unions, while the folks of the latter tendency wants the DSA to refocus their efforts into elections for local officeholders, who will "hand over power to the working class" by creating neighborhood councils. It's hard to say how much of these municipalists make up the caucus, but their presence surely says a lot about the enduring influence of Bookchin on the US anarchist community.

But one of the most absurd proposals I've seen from their pamphlet program (which they assure us reflects only the opinion of the individual author) has got to be that call out to DSA members to basically build an independent working class Party that will run candidates in the Democratic Party primaries for all levels of government, then support the most left leaning Democrats in the general elections where running a third party candidate risks a right wing victory, and running third party candidates where that risk doesn't exist. It's a 'dual party' strategy aimed at developing an independent power that will gradually grow alongside of and replace the state. Now tell me, what has that got to do with anarchism or libertarian socialism?

Nevertheless, this seems to be a pretty big caucus - much bigger than the Communist Caucus I think - so perhaps it's not really fair to reduce caucus membership to any shitty tendency. It's just difficult find out what useful activities have been pursued by members aside from what's been ideologically promoted within the DSA. I'm curious to hear if anyone has heard of any information that fills in that gap. I know there's also the Syndicalist Working Group within the caucus, but what has come out of that? Some caucus members are also members of the Industrial Workers of the World.

For those who want to follow the Libertarian Socialist Caucus, aside from their main twitter page, there are separate pages for the local branches or chapters that have formed and affiliated to the caucus: Portland, Milwaukee, Chicago, Seattle, Orange County in California, and San Diego (although this last one hasn't tweeted anything since late June). There is also an interim organising committee, which is having an inaugural general assembly in August, laying the "groundwork for creating a local DSAnarcho Caucus for the NYC metro area". There's also the respective FB pages which I think are a lot easier to follow their local meetings and events.

Elsewhere, there is also the revolutionary Marxist, "base building" DSA Refoundation which has over 350 members across 37 states according to the latest figure published on their website. Back in November 2017, DSA Spark had merged with them, so that had doubled their numbers.

The tenant organising efforts of the Communist Caucus, which was before mentioned and discussed elsewhere, has culminated in the formation of the East Bay TANC in May of this year.

From their main twitter page, they announced that the caucus has over 500 members* (not as big as I initially thought), as well as providing two maps displaying where they have locals officially affiliated and locals currently in the process of being organised.

Funnily enough, in a separate tweet reacting to a Virginia state house delegate quoting Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, they revealed that they are "hardly ideological electoralists, obviously, and are split on the question of whether and how much it's worthwhile to participate in elections at all".

As a US embedded poster I can report that the wind sorta smells electoral for the left at the moment as Democratic Socialists are gaining some steam. I think it's important to point out here that the capricious attitude of leftists towards how they want to approach the ballot box (in the Democrats, outside, mixed, blah) is mostly irrelevant and always represents some kind of slide away from actually building tangible working class power. I couldn't think of a bigger waste of fucking time. The good news is there are current organizing efforts within the US that represent direct engagement and action by the effected group; Indigenous, Feminist, Black as well as the IWW and other radical unionists. Developments in these movements over the last decade, however modest, are infinitely more impressive than leftist electoral adventures.

We can count on this; ANY electoral gains by any of these left of center (Sanders, Warren), Democratic Socialist (Ocasio-Cortez) or libertarian socialist (?) candidates will quickly be subsumed and swallowed by the Democratic Party. Further, they'll be poisoned, as all things left that enter the state are (SYRIZA). It's basically a law of physics at this point.

That said, I'll vote for any motherfucker who'll zap student debt and get us some goddamned healthcare. Survival is a whole nother thing

So the other day I was hanging out with one of my anarchist friends visiting from the USA and we started discussing the DSA. We both agree that social democracy is a dead end, a waste of time, a trap. And yet, he says he's thinking of getting involved in the DSA.

You can imagine my confusion. We spoke more and in time I came to understand his reasons, though I'm not sure if I agree... then again, I'm not sure I disagree, either.

1. He feels like, as an anarchist/communist, there are very few options of things to get involved in. At least not in his city.

2. He is excited by an organization that brings together such a huge number of people who are anti-capitalist. He acknowledges that most of them aren't proper anti-capitalists, but at least they have a disdain for the system.

3. He doesn't think that the majority of members are deeply committed to social democracy so much as they are looking for an alternative to capitalism. He thinks they are social democrats by default more than anything, simply because they are uninformed about real alternatives to capitalism.

4. Given points 2 and 3, he thinks there is potential to turn people in the DSA away from social democracy and towards a revolutionary perspective. He says that in Russia in the years leading up to 1917, the Bolshevik Party was social democratic, but then became revolutionary. (Unfortunately it was the wrong kind of revolutionary, and then became counter-revolutionary, but still, the point is it changed from a work within the system party to an overthrow the system party.) I'm not informed enough to say if he's right on this, but if it is, I think it's a good point.

So, given all that, I can understand why he is thinking of joining. But do I agree? I'm not sure.

Part of me thinks it's not a good use of his time and that he should be focused on building the power of the working class, not the power of the left.

Another part of me thinks it is a good idea, because if it was possible to shift the DSA into a truly anti-capitalist, anti-state, and anti-electoralist perspective, that'd be fucking great. It seems like a long-shot... a very, very, very long-shot... but hell, everything seems like a very, very, very long-shot these days, so why not?

So the other day I was hanging out with one of my anarchist friends visiting from the USA and we started discussing the DSA. We both agree that social democracy is a dead end, a waste of time, a trap. And yet, he says he's thinking of getting involved in the DSA.

You can imagine my confusion. We spoke more and in time I came to understand his reasons, though I'm not sure if I agree... then again, I'm not sure I disagree, either.

1. He feels like, as an anarchist/communist, there are no ideal options of things to get involved in. At least not in his city. So he's kind of desperate.

2. He is excited by an organization that brings together such a huge number of people who are anti-capitalist. He acknowledges that most of them aren't proper anti-capitalists, but at least they have a disdain for the system.

3. He doesn't think that the majority of members are deeply committed to social democracy so much as they are looking for an alternative to capitalism. He thinks they are social democrats by default, simply because they are uninformed about real alternatives to capitalism.

4. Given points 2 and 3, he thinks there is potential to turn people in the DSA away from social democracy and towards a revolutionary perspective. He says that in Russia in the years leading up to 1917, the Bolshevik Party was social democratic, but then became revolutionary. (Unfortunately it later became counter-revolutionary, but the point is it changed from a work within the system party to an overthrow the system party.) I'm not informed enough to say if he's right on this, but if it is, I think it's a good point.

So, given all that, I can understand why he is thinking of joining. But do I agree?

Part of me thinks it's not a good use of his time and that he should be focused on building the power of the working class, not the power of the left.

Another part of me thinks it is a good idea, because if it was possible to shift the DSA into a truly anti-capitalist, anti-state, and anti-electoralist perspective, that'd be fucking great. Or if they could get a split with the Libertarian Caucus growing to a much larger size, after converting a shit-load of social democrats, and then breaking away from the DSA. It seems like a long-shot... a very, very, very long-shot... but hell, everything seems like a very, very, very long-shot these days, so why not?

It’s his time to waste, but he might need to be reminded of the traps represented by a combination of desperation and few options. These are precisely the arguments for anarchists and non-party communists to become involved with Leninists.

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